Carl Jensen was a clean cut young man, very fair with freckled skin. He engaged Sarah in conversation right away; it was a part of what he considered good technique to get a girl talking, and he wasted no time.
Jack and Laura had dinner with them, but Jack was obviously chafing to get away. They hadn’t even finished their after-dinner coffee before he was whispering in Laura’s ear, “Let’s get the hell out of here.” Laura, who was almost wordless through dinner, agreed.
Jack did the dirty work. He told them a joke, he made them laugh, and then he said he had a meeting the next day up in Albany. Very unexpected. Would they mind, etc.
They were a little startled, Jensen especially, for he had expected Jack and Laura to stick with him and lend moral support through the evening—but they replied, almost together, “No, go ahead. We don’t mind.”
As soon as they were in the street Jack sighed, “God. I couldn’t have stood another minute of it. Straight people are so depressing.”
Laura smiled at him and noticed for the first time that evening how tired and worried he looked. She was so wound up in Laura Landon that nobody’s troubles counted for her but her own. But now she saw Jack’s anxiety and she was afraid she had caused it. She started to apologize. “Jack, I want you to know ...” she began.
“Skip it.”
“Please.”
“I said skip it.” And his voice was harsh enough to hurt her.
They walked along in silence for a minute and finally Laura said, “Jack, I have to talk. I feel awful about it. I saw my father last night. He saw me, too. I don’t know what came over me. I’ve never been so terrified in my life, as if he were the devil and I had to get away from him. I ran all the way to the subway. I think I was hysterical.”
He looked at her and then he sighed. “Everybody’s hysterical. Even me.”
“There was an old colored lady there. In the rest room. She said something I didn’t understand then, but I’ve been thinking about it. She said everybody is a stranger in this world until he finds a little love. That’s the most important thing.”
“Wise lady,” Jack said.
They walked without talking for half a block. “How’s Terry?” Laura asked.
“He needs a spanking. I act like a lovesick cow with him. I can’t help it. I know I’m doing it, and I can’t help it. He laughs at me.” Jack looked at the pavement as he walked, his hands shoved into his pockets. “Mother,” he said slowly. “Do you want to get back in my good graces?”
“I do,” she said gently. “Yes. I do.”
“Well,” he said, and stopped walking. She stopped beside him and saw that he was embarrassed. “This is a rotten thing to do. But I’d do it for you, bear that firmly in mind.” He poked her chest between her breasts, as if he were making a point with a fellow business man. It was intended to lighten the atmosphere a little, but the atmosphere was too heavy already.
“I’ll help you, Jack, you know I will. Any way I can. You’ve been so wonderful to me. I don’t know what I would have done.”
“Okay, okay.” He stopped her abruptly and then seemed unable to speak himself for a minute. Finally he said, quickly, “I’m losing him, Laura.”
“Oh, Jack!” She was suddenly full of sympathy, but he cut her off again.
“What the hell,” he said cynically. “I expected it. I predicted it. And I know why.”
“Why?”
“Mother, you have a short memory.” He smiled wryly. “My little friend likes nice things. Nice things cost money. And besides,” he looked at his shoes, scraping one toe along a crack in the pavement, “I can’t handle him. I should shove his teeth down his throat. I should make him behave. And I can’t. I feel more like falling on my knees and worshipping him. He has no respect for me.” He spoke so softly that Laura had to strain to hear him.
She put her hands on his arms. “Jack, he’s not worth your time,” she said. “Anybody who would take advantage—”
“No, no, no, it’s normal. In this abnormal world we live in, you and I. If I were young and beautiful, he’d settle for that. But I’m not. I’m middle-aged and ugly. And a sap. So it takes something else ... money. I wish I had the knack of being a millionaire.”
“Damn it, Jack, you need somebody who can appreciate you.” He laughed bitterly, but she went on. “You make me hate Terry already without ever having seen him.”
“No, Laura,” he said seriously. “Don’t hate him. He’s very young. He’ll learn. It’s my fault. I can’t give him what he needs.”
“Dollar bills?”
Jack sighed. “That’s my last chance. I know it takes something else, but I haven’t got it. And now I haven’t got the dollar bills, either.”
“If I were a boy I’d fall madly in love with you,” Laura said.
This was such a startling remark that Jack had to drop his cynicism and take it in the spirit in which it was given. “Thanks, Mother,” he said softly. He looked at her, his ugly intelligent face prey to a number of strong emotions that he made no attempt to hide. It was a measure of his regard for Laura that he could let her see him stripped of wit and laughter like this. “How much do you have in the bank, Laura?”
Laura stared a little at him. But then she said quickly, “All I have is yours, Jack. It’s not much, but if it’ll help....”
He smiled a little and then he leaned over and kissed her cheek. “You’re a doll,” he said. “We both know this is a losing investment. But it’ll give me a few more days with him. After that....” He shrugged. “Well, I always seem to live through these things. I don’t know why.”
They stood uncertainly on the corner for a minute and suddenly he asked, “Where are you going now?”
“Home.”
“To Marcie?”
“Yes. I hope Burr hasn’t tried to bother her.”
“He’s pretty sick about the whole thing. I think he’ll drink it off for a day or two. You should, too. The whole thing looks screwy to me.” He looked at her. “Come have a nightcap with me.”
“Where?”
“The Cellar. Where else?”
“I’m afraid I’ll run into Beebo.”
He shrugged. “I’ve gotten to know her better.” He gazed away from her thoughtfully.
“You have?”
“She calls me all the time. ‘Where does Laura work, what does Laura like, tell me all about her.’”
“She asked you that?” Laura was slightly incredulous, but once again, she liked it. She was sorry she liked it, but she did.
“Yeah. I’m beginning to think I like her.”
“You liked her before.”
“I know.” He laughed. “I’m not making sense. I guess I mean I feel sympathetic toward her. We’re both unlucky in love. At the moment.” He looked hard at her then and said, “Please come with me, Laura. I don’t want to go home.”
“Why not?”
Again he laughed, not so pleasantly this time. “I’m afraid of what I’ll find.”
“Like what?”
“Like somebody else in my bed with Terry.”
After a moment of shocked silence, Laura put her arm in his. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s go somewhere and flatter the hell out of each other.”
He chuckled at her. “Mother, damn it, sometimes I suspect you of having a sense of humor.”
They went down to The Cellar, in spite of Laura’s misgivings. Jack seemed so unhappy that she wanted to indulge him. It was crowded as always on Friday nights, but Beebo wasn’t in sight.
“She’ll be in,” Jack observed. “She’s late on Fridays.”
They stood at the bar until a couple of stools were vacated and then sat down.
“What does she do?” Laura asked rather shyly.
“Who? Beebo?”
“She must get money somewhere. She has to pay the rent like everybody else.”
“She runs an elevator. In the Grubb Building. They think she’s a boy.”
“My God—an elevator.” It seemed wrong, even ludicrous. Beebo had too much between her ears to fritter her youth away running an elevator. “What does she do that for?”
“She doesn’t have to wear a skirt.”
Laura was stunned. It was pathetic, even shameful. For the first time she saw Beebo not as an overwhelming, handsome, self-assured individual, but as a very human being with a little more pride and fear and weakness than she ever permitted to show.
Laura didn’t know how long they had been there when Beebo walked in. She only knew she had had plenty to drink and it was time to go home. Beebo walked up to her, and Laura saw her face first in the mirror. She turned around with a start and stared at her. Beebo was wearing a dress.
A dress. And high heeled shoes. She was over six feet in the high heels. Strangely enough she wasn’t awkward in them, either. She wasn’t comfortable, but she could walk a straight line and keep her balance.
“Hello, Bo-peep,” she said quietly in Laura’s ear.
Laura felt a grateful response flow down to her toes from the ear. “Hello,” she said to the mirror image and then turned to face her. “Hello, Betty Jean.” She looked at her skirt.
Beebo gave her a wry smile. “You remembered?” she said. “Do you remember the good things, too?”
“Yes,” said Laura, smiling back. And surprised herself. For a moment she felt curiously receptive. She had no idea why.
Beebo gazed at her and then she put a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “Hello, fellow sufferer,” she said.
“Hi, doll.” He turned around. “We’re drowning our sorrows.” He gestured at Laura with his glass.
“So I see. Mind if I drown a few with you?”
“We’d be delighted.”
Beebo nodded at the bartender, who nodded back and fixed her a whisky and water. Beebo was on good terms with the bartenders in all the gay bars. They knew what she drank and they served her without being told. Beebo leaned on the counter between Jack and Laura.
“Where’ve you been, doll?” Jack asked, waving a hand at her dress. “Masquerade ball?”
“Party,” she said laconically, hoisting her newly arrived glass.
“Gay?”
“Straight.”
“How dull. What’s the matter with you, Beebo? You’re no fun anymore. You wear skirts and go to straight parties. Jesus.”
Beebo grinned at him. “I have one dress, lover. I get it out once a year and wear it. In honor of my father. He likes dames.”
“Yeah, but he’s not around to appreciate it.”
“Well, you are, Jackson. Give me a kiss.” And she took his chin in her hand and extracted one from his reluctant mouth.
“God!” he said, and made a face. Beebo laughed. And Laura sat and watched them and wondered what they were all doing there and why they laughed at themselves when they were all aching inside from unspeakable hurts. She felt vaguely jealous to think of Beebo at a party with people she didn’t know and had never seen. Beebo surrounded by women. Laura looked at her until Beebo returned the stare without talking, only looking at Laura until Laura had to lower her eyes. “What’s eating you, Bo-peep?” Beebo said, running a finger around the edge of her glass.
“Are pants really that important?” Laura said. She said it sarcastically because she was afraid of her tears.
Beebo laughed a little. “I don’t know. How important is that important?”
“Why don’t you get a decent job?”
“Oh,” said Beebo as she understood. She finished a second drink. “I’ve got one, baby. I’m a lift jockey. Very elevating work.”
“Not funny,” Laura said. “You work all day at a lousy job like that, and then you drink all night.”
“Does that bother you?”
“Yes. Not very much, of course. You’re not worth it. But it seems awful. All for a pair of pants.”
Beebo laughed. “Reform me, baby.”
“I don’t have time.”
“What do you have time for?”
“Work.”
“And Marcie?”
“And Marcie.” Laura didn’t know why she said it. She knew how badly it would hurt. But she was high, the go-to-hell feeling was still with her from the morning. It was either hurt or be hurt; sarcasm or tears. She looked up slowly at Beebo. At her blue eyes and her lips turned down, with an unaccustomed trace of lipstick on them. Laura wanted to hurt her. She couldn’t stop herself. She turned on her stool to face her. “You’re ridiculous,” she said. “You’re a little girl trying to be a little boy. And you run an elevator for the privilege. Grow up, Beebo. You’ll never be a little boy. Or a big boy. You just haven’t got what it takes. Not all the elevators in the world can make a boy of you. You can wear pants till you’re blue in the face and it won’t change what’s underneath.”
Beebo just stared at her, her face suddenly pale and frowning, in silence. Then she turned, leaving her cigarette still lighted in a tray on the bar, and left them without saying a word to either.
Laura and Jack sat in silence for a while after she had gone, watching her cigarette burn itself out. Finally Jack said, “If Terry had done that to me, Laura, I’d have strangled him.”
Laura put her head down on the bar and cried.
* * *
The weekend was a stalemate for Laura and Marcie. Laura was so deeply involved in her conflicts that it was impossible to talk about them. In two weeks Jean would be back. In a day her father would be gone. Burr would start hounding Marcie, and Laura still didn’t know why Marcie had let him think they were lovers. And Beebo ... Beebo ... that hurt the worst, somehow. It was so needless, so brutal. The kind of thing Merrill Landon had done to her when he was in a temper. Just to blow off steam, to dissipate the mood. Only he went even farther. He would shout and call her names, slap her, call down the wrath of his dead wife and son on her head.
Marcie couldn’t get through to Laura, hard as she tried. She, too, began to get moody. She launched into long self-reproaching speeches which tortured Laura until she begged her to stop.
On Monday Laura went to the bank before she went to the office and withdrew one hundred and ninety-two dollars. She was going to leave herself twenty, just in case, but she left herself five instead. She had a little at home. She could get along until the end of the week. The rent wasn’t due and there was food in the house.
Jack came by at five and picked it up. “Come out for dinner with me,” he said. “I seem to have come into a little money.”
“No, thanks.”
“My treat,” he said, directing his sarcasm at himself and waggling her dollars at her.
Laura smiled faintly. “Take it,” she said. “I can’t talk to anybody tonight.”
“How’s Marcie?”
“Brooding. I get on her nerves, I guess.”
“That’s only fair. She’s made a mess of yours. How’s Burr?”
“He called her. They talked for a few minutes. He asked her to see him.”
“Will she?”
“No.”
“Not yet, hm?”
“Never,” Laura said sharply. “She’s fed up with him.”
“Well, if not Burr, somebody else.” Laura covered her face with her hands suddenly and Jack looked at her sympathetically. “Just won’t believe me, will you, Mother! You love Marcie so sooner or later Marcie will have to give in and love you.”
“No!” she said, looking up. “I know it’s not that simple. It’s just that I’m convinced I have a chance. I live with her, I know her, and she was willing to have Burr believe we were lovers.”
“She was willing to get him the hell out of her hair after a bad quarrel,” he said. “That’s all. She just let him believe it to get rid of him.”
“Please Jack,” she said with forced patience. “How’s Terry?” If he’s going to torment me, I’ll give him the same treatment, she thought.
Jack lifted his eyebrows slightly and shrugged. “Healthy,” he said. “And hungry. Jesus, how that kid eats. And he likes smoked oysters.”
Laura had to smile, though she didn’t feel like it. “Get him a bale of smoked oysters,” she said, “and leave me alone for a while. Please.”
Jack gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Okay.” He started out and then turned to ask, “How did Sarah like Jensen?”
“She said she liked him. She has a crush on Dr. Hagstrom, but she liked Carl anyway.”
“He’s smitten. Says he’s going to call her again.”
“Good.” They smiled a little at each other. “Somebody’s doing it right,” Laura said wistfully.
Jack laughed. “Never mind,” he said. “Someday we’ll die and go to heaven. All the angels are queer, you know.” And he left.
* * *
Laura followed soon after. She knew just where she was going—the McAlton Hotel. She would walk right in and ask for Merrill Landon and the clerk would say he had left, the convention was over, and Laura could quit suffering over him. He would be hundreds of miles away and she could start to forget him.
She walked over to the hotel in a matter of minutes and went into the lobby with a confidence she had not felt during the week her father had been there. She was about to kill her ghost. She looked forward to great relief.
At the desk she waited for a moment or two until a clerk could take care of her. She recognized him from one of her previous visits but fortunately he didn’t seem to remember her. “Yes?” he said.
“Is the Chi Delta Sigma convention over?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am it is.”
“Oh. Then I guess Merrill Landon isn’t staying here any more.”
“Oh, yes he is.”
Laura was startled. “He said a young lady might be asking for him,” the clerk said. “He left a message.” He looked at her dubiously, unnerved by the strange expression on her face. “Would you be his daughter, by any chance?”
Laura shook her head numbly. The clerk brought her an envelope and Laura opened it and read, in her father’s hand: “Laura, I will be here till the end of the month. Come up to my room any evening after eight.” It was not even signed. Nice and sentimental, she thought. Just like him.
“Thank you,” she told the clerk.
“Will there be any answer?” he asked.
“Yes,” Laura said. She took the pad of paper he pushed toward her and wrote on it, “Go to hell.” Then she folded it, put it in the envelope, sealed it, and wrote “Merrill Landon” on the front.
She shook all the way home. He was still there, still haunting her, waiting to pounce on her and punish her. When Marcie asked her what was the matter, Laura couldn’t tell her. It was Laura’s problem, it was intimate and awful, and she had no wish to share it. She hardly noticed how little she had looked at Marcie the past few days, how little she had responded to her. And yet in the back of her mind the question rankled: Why did Marcie let Burr believe that lie? Even for a short while? Why hadn’t she fought it harder?
But the fact of her father’s physical presence in New York obliterated other considerations. He was waiting for her around every corner, in every doorway. She was even afraid to answer the phone, and afraid to return to his hotel for fear he would have the police there waiting for her. She didn’t know on what grounds he could arrest her, but she believed her father could do anything violent and forceful. Her work suffered still more at the office. And she hadn’t the interest to stay late and make it up.
Sarah talked to her one afternoon at the end of the week. “Guess what?” she said, to start out in a friendly vein.
“What?”
“Carl Jensen called me again. We’re going out tomorrow night.”
“How nice, Sarah. I’m glad for you.” But she spoke without enthusiasm.
“Are you?” Sarah’s voice was pointed enough to catch Laura’s attention and warn her that something was wrong. She looked up. “Yes, of course I am, Sarah. I’m sorry, I’m not myself lately. I—”
“You’ve been in a fog all week. Another one of those headaches?”
“No. I mean yes. I don’t know. I just don’t feel alive.” She laughed listlessly.
Sarah sat down beside her. “Laura,” she said firmly, “you could do real well in this job. If you wanted to. Everybody here likes you. Everybody’s pulling for you. You’re a good typist and you’re a smart girl. Jeanie liked you a lot, and she’ll be back here in another week. There’ll be three of us, and things could go a lot better ... but Laura....”
“But I haven’t worked out too well,” Laura said for her. “Is that it?”
“You haven’t worked at all sometimes. Other times you work your tail off. That’s the trouble, Laura, you’re so erratic,” Sarah said. “You stay late and knock yourself out one night, and then a week goes by and you can’t do a damn thing. You drag along all day, you just don’t seem to care.
“I hate to pull a philosophical on you, but gee, Laura, we’re dealing with sick people. Sometimes these X-ray reports spell life and death for somebody. We can’t dawdle over them. Doctors are waiting all over the city for these things. Dr. Hollingsworth is swamped. We can’t let him down.”
“I know.” Laura felt the way she had in third grade when she feigned sick to get out of playing a role in the annual spring pageant. The teacher had talked to her in much the same tone of voice, and used much the same arguments. “Everybody’s pulling for you, we all like you, don’t let us down, Laura, don’t let us down.” But the thought of going out on that stage had appalled her. The whole audience melted down to one man—Merrill Landon. She had done it, finally, to prove she could. But his amused criticisms afterward had nearly killed her.
“I haven’t been feeling well,” she murmured to Sarah.
“Well, you’d better start feeling better, honey. Because Dr. Hollingsworth and I had a little talk today. He asked me what was wrong with you. He thought maybe if you and I talked it over you might tell me what was the matter.” She spoke carefully, in a discreet voice.
But Laura stood up, offended and frightened. “Nothing’s the matter,” she snapped. “If he doesn’t like my work let him come to me and tell me about it himself.”
Sarah stood up, herself slightly offended at this display of ingratitude. “He came to me because he wanted to spare you any embarrassment, Laura. I should think that would be obvious.”
Laura relented a little. “I’m sorry, Sarah. I can’t explain it. I just can’t, it’s impossible. If he wants to let me go, I have no choice. I’ll leave.” But she was not as resigned to it, as stoical, as she sounded.
“Can’t you try to do a little better, Laura?” Sarah said kindly. “If I could tell him we had a little talk and you promised to try to do better. Or you’d been sick, or had a problem at home, or something. Anything.”
Laura gave an unpleasant little laugh. Then her face dropped and she said, “I have no excuses, Sarah. I’m not a good enough liar to cook one up. I just—” And here she burst unexpectedly into tears and Sarah had to try to comfort her.
“Look, honey,” she said, after Laura had recovered a little. “Do you want the job? Do you?”
“Yes,” Laura said. “I want it.”
“Will you try to be more consistent, then? And I’ll tell Dr. Hollingsworth you’ve been having trouble at home you don’t want to talk about.”
“That’s such an obvious fib, Sarah.”
“No, it’s no fib. I heard you talk to Jack on the phone last week,” Sarah said. “I know there’s something going on.”
Laura went shaky and pale, and the blue shadows that had been growing in the past weeks under her eyes deepened. “What do you know?” she demanded.
Sarah became alarmed at her appearance. “Well, nothing really, only you sounded so upset, I thought maybe—”
“What did I say?”
“Oh, I don’t remember.” She tried to push it off casually, but she had thoroughly scared Laura, who recalled with biting clarity now Jack’s voice saying, For God’s sake, Mother, keep your voice down. “What did I say, Sarah?”
“Nothing so very bad, Laura.” Sarah stared at her. “I just got the impression you had a quarrel.”
“You had no right to listen!” Laura exclaimed harshly.
“You had no right to make personal calls during working hours, for that matter,” Sarah said defensively.
Laura picked up her purse and ran out of the office without another word. She went into a phone booth and called Jack. “Can I come over?” she said.
“No. I’m in a mess.”
“Please, Jack.”
“Mother, for Christ’s sake! Be empathic for once, will you?”
“All right, I’ll call Beebo.”
“No don’t. She’s p.o.’d at you. She may never speak to you again after what you said to her.”
Laura felt frantic. “Well, what am I supposed to do?” she said, half crying into the receiver. “I’ve practically lost my job.”
“Go home to Marcie, Mother. Do something. I can’t help you out tonight. I’m sorry, honey.” And he was.
“Oh, Jack, say something to me. Say something kind. Anything.”
After a pause he said, “I love you, Mother. Only I’m not in love with you. I wish to hell I was, it couldn’t be worse than Terry. Now be a doll and let me go. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
She felt the urgency to get away in his voice and let him go. For a moment she sat in the booth and dried her tears. She felt sick about Beebo but she was afraid to call her.
* * *
It was another torturous weekend for Marcie, who was beginning to feel as if she had ruined Laura’s life. It was Sunday night before they actually made any sort of communication with each other.
Burr had been calling Marcie every night, trying to talk her into leaving the apartment. Their talks were short but the animosity had faded from them. Laura listened to them listlessly; she could not avoid hearing them in the small apartment. Marcie said things like, “Yes, she’s here.” “No, you know I don’t want to see you.” “No, we aren’t, and don’t bring that up again.” “I know I did. I know what I did, Burr, don’t throw it in my face.” She refused to see him.
Laura winced at all this, and finally she took to going out on the roof when he called. The windows were wide open, the weather being soft and pleasant now, and Marcie’s voice carried even out there. But it wasn’t so pervading, so persistent. On Sunday night, Laura went out and looked at the city while Marcie talked. The time passed almost without Laura’s being aware of it. She gazed across New York in the direction of the McAlton, wondering if her father was sitting in his room waiting for her. And then she looked down toward the Village and her heart gave a sick squeeze at the thought of Beebo. Beebo, who told her how terribly a love affair could hurt. Beebo, who told her to beware and then got caught in her own trap. Laura wondered if Beebo really loved her. If she could ever forgive her. Laura had attacked the very basis of her being: her body, her pride, her deepest needs. In that one quick wicked speech, Laura had ridiculed her. She felt the tears come. And she could hear Jack saying, “If Terry said that to me, I’d strangle him.” It was shameful.
She grew very depressed, thinking of the necessity of going back to work in the office the next morning, with Sarah trying to put on cheerfulness and Dr. Hollingsworth—so kindly, so tolerant—watching for signs of steadiness and application in her. And herself, so heavily aware of their good will toward her, their frustration, and her own overwhelming complexities that sapped her strength and effort.
She was startled when Marcie said at her elbow, “Burr wants to see me.” When Laura didn’t answer, Marcie said, “He feels God-awful about the whole thing. He wants to apologize to me.” Another silence. “I want to apologize to you, Laura. But you won’t let me.”
Laura shut her eyes in pain for a moment, as if to avoid the sight of Marcie’s face. And then she opened them and without looking at her, said, “We’ve been all through this before, Marcie. I don’t want your apologies. You have nothing to apologize for.”
“You don’t!”
Marcie gave a long sigh of exasperation. “All right, then why won’t you speak to me?”
“I will, Marcie. When I can.”
“When will that be?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why not now?”
“I guess I’m sick. Maybe Jack was right, I need to see his analyst.” She tried to smile a little.
“Because of your father? What he did to you?”
Laura looked down at her arms, folded on the cement railing. “I guess so,” she almost whispered.
“Laura, say something to me. This is unbearable.” Marcie was pleading with her, as Laura had pleaded herself with Jack on the phone. She turned and looked at Marcie, standing close beside her, two delicate lines between her eyes betraying the tension inside her. For a moment Laura just looked at her. It had been over a week since she looked at Marcie that way. In the soft spring night, in the golden light fading up from the streets below, with the myriad muffled noises that are the music of a great city around them, they gazed at each other. And Marcie was very beautiful with her hair lifted gently in the breeze and her eyes big with anxiety. She was wrapped in a blue silk negligee and the lines of her slim young body showed through it.
Finally, prompted by the necessity to speak, Laura said, “It’s so hard to talk, Marcie. Words are so inadequate sometimes.”
“Any words will do, Laura. Except ‘Excuse me.’ That’s all you’ve said to me for days on end.”
They smiled a little at each other, and Laura took her hands. She pulled just a little on them, and Marcie responded softly, coming toward her. “Laura, tell me I’m forgiven. Don’t say there’s nothing to forgive me for. I just want to hear you say it.”
“No.”
“Please.” Her voice broke.
“No, no, no,” Laura said, gazing curiously at Marcie. Did she really feel so guilty? She hadn’t done anything that bad. Laura had a strange feeling of finality, of the end of things, of everything ending at once so that nothing really mattered any more. As if Marcie would turn and walk out of her life, and her job would end, and Beebo would never see her, and Jack and Terry would break up. It made her pensive and sad. She wondered at all the new feelings in her: the inability to care about her job, her meanness with Beebo, her unreasoning fear of Merrill Landon in the hotel lobby. Nothing seemed very real, up there on the roof. It didn’t seem to make much difference what she did. She gave another little pull and Marcie came still closer, touching her up and down the length of her body.
Laura touched her hair. “You look so much like a friend of mine,” she said. Marcie reminded her of Beth again at this moment; the Beth she had lost so long ago, a million years ago, it seemed.
“I do? You never told me that.”
“I forgot.”
“What’s she like?”
“Oh, she was tall, short dark hair, purple eyes. Rather boyish.”
“You talk about her as if she were dead.”
“She is. As far as I’m concerned.”
Marcie frowned at her. “She doesn’t sound at all like me.”
“No, I guess she doesn’t,” Laura said. “There’s something about your face; I don’t know how to define it. I thought I saw a resemblance.” She had seen it in Beebo, too. And even in the curly-headed little blonde who had approached her in The Cellar the night she was looking for Beebo. They couldn’t all look like Beth. It was very strange.
“Were you good friends?” Marcie asked.
Laura smiled a little and put her arms around Marcie. In the still night she answered simply, “We were lovers.” It was very quiet, dreamlike, as if she spoke in a trance.
Marcie stared at her, motionless, as if to determine whether she were joking. She stood in Laura’s arms, unable to move one way or the other; uncertain and a little scared.
Laura saw her consternation, but it didn’t worry her. She spoke again, still feeling as if it weren’t real, any more than the glittering city below was real, or her father’s wrath, or Jack, or Beebo, or the doctors and Sarah ... “That was the ‘great love’ I told you about, in college,” she said. “It was Beth.”
After a long pause, Marcie said in a whisper, “What happened?”
“She got married,” Laura said.
Marcie was dumbfounded. “I’m sorry,” she said awkwardly and then retreated into herself, embarrassed. She had no idea what to say, what to do.
Laura could see that, but at first she didn’t try to interpret it. It didn’t frighten her yet. “That’s why I was so shocked when Burr said you told him we were lovers,” Laura said. “I wish we were, Marcie. But I never touched you.” Marcie was studying her now, her eyes brimming. “When he accused me of it and believed it and said you told him so, I was so hurt I didn’t know what to do or say. I thought of a million crazy explanations. The only one that seemed to make sense was that you felt the way I do.” She looked hard at Marcie. Their faces were very close together, and Laura was holding her tightly, her arms locked around Marcie’s small waist. “Do you, Marcie?” Laura whispered. “Do you?”
They stayed that way for awhile, not moving, looking at each other. Laura felt her breath speed up and she felt a powerful longing to kiss Marcie. It grew stronger by the second. She began to press Marcie against her rhythmically and suddenly all the months of repression exploded inside her and came out kisses on her lips. She began to kiss Marcie intensely—her face, her neck and arms, her ears, her throat. “Marcie,” she said hoarsely, suddenly holding her tight with the strength of desire. “I’ve wanted you for so long. I thought I’d die of it. Living with you, so close to you, seeing you all the time ... undressing, bathing ... It drove me crazy. Marcie, you’re so beautiful, so sweet. Oh, God, it feels so good to say it. You’re impossible. I want you so terribly, so terribly. You want me too, don’t you? I know it, I always knew it. Oh, Marcie, let me, let me. Don’t stop me! Please!” A note of anguish crept into her voice when Marcie began to resist her. “Please, Marcie!” she implored her.
But Marcie put her arms up and pushed hard against Laura. “Let me go!” she said. “Let me go!” And she began to cry. Laura, shocked, released her so suddenly that Marcie staggered backwards a little. She gave a cry, recovered her balance, and stared at Laura with her eyes wide for a moment. Then she turned and ran inside.
Laura stood where she was for a long time, afraid to think or feel. She had no idea how much time had passed before she dared to go inside. Had she frightened Marcie? Revolted her? Would Marcie greet her with love or hatred? As a witch or a lover? She was in a state of nervous agony when she finally gathered the strength to walk around to the penthouse door.
She opened it and walked slowly through the living room and kitchen. She pushed the bedroom door open slowly. Marcie was sitting on her bed, her back toward Laura. She had apparently sat like that without moving for some time. She turned very slowly when she heard Laura come in, and looked up at her. Laura felt her heart turn over. Marcie was so lovely, so miserable. It showed plainly in her face. Laura went to her and dropped to her knees in front of her and put her head in Marcie’s lap. And when she felt Marcie’s hand stroking her head, she wept.
“Forgive me,” she begged. “It’s your turn now, Marcie. I frightened you. I didn’t mean to, I didn’t!” And she caught Marcie’s hand and kissed it.
“Laura,” Marcie said quietly. “I’ve been trying to talk to you for weeks and you wouldn’t let me. Now it’s eating me up. I’m going to tell you something. And you’re going to listen.” Her voice trembled so that Laura looked up at her.
“Laura, I’m so ashamed, so ashamed.”
“Tell me, Marcie. Tell me. I’m listening now.” She searched her face anxiously.
Marcie swallowed her tears and with a tremendous effort, said, “I did an awful thing, Laur. I’ve known for a while about you.” She looked away, struggling with herself; her shame, her pity, her shaking voice.
“You—you knew?” Laura whispered, going white.
“Yes. I couldn’t help knowing. You couldn’t hide it, Laura. You couldn’t come near me without it showing—in your eyes, your face. The way you touched me, the things you said, all the crazy moods you had. You seemed afraid of me. You let things slip. You even kissed me once. I’ve been around enough to know. I knew about you.” She wiped the tears from her cheeks embarrassedly and went on, unable to look at Laura, “I should have told you. Or else I should have let it drop. But I guess it interested me. It seemed like a game. I got sort of intrigued, you might say. I even told Burr what I suspected ... months ago ...” She stifled a sob.
Laura’s face was colorless, tortured. Her hands were over her mouth.
“It kills me to say these things,” Marcie whispered. “But I did everything to earn your contempt. I can’t lie to you any more, Laura. I even bet Burr I could make you make a pass at me.”
“No,” Laura gasped. “Oh, no—”
“He thought it was all a joke. He wouldn’t even listen to me. Until I got fed up with him and started hanging around here so much. Then he got it into his head that we were having a hot and heavy affair. I couldn’t talk him out of it. I’d gone too far for that.”
Laura turned away from her and rested her head against her own bed, too stunned, too wounded, to answer or understand half of it.
“Laura.” Marcie bent toward her. “I don’t know what crazy imp gets hold of me sometimes. I swear I don’t. I never even wondered what I’d do if it ever came to this, if you ever tried to make love to me. I guess I thought it would be a game, like everything else. I guess I thought it would be a lot of kicks. Or just a stupid silly thing that wouldn’t really matter. To either of us. I guess I didn’t think at all.
“And just now—on the roof—when you told me how you felt, and how you wanted me—Laura, I had no idea you could love like that. I didn’t know it could be beautiful, or touching, or tragic. I thought it was mostly play-acting. I thought the only real love was between men and women. But you made it beautiful, Laura. I don’t know what else to call it. I’m ashamed. Clear through my soul. I played you for a fool, and all the while you were an angel.”
Laura began to sob.
“I’d do anything for you, Laur,” Marcie whispered. “Anything to make it up. If I could love you the way you want me to, I’d do that. I’ll even try, if you want it.”
Laura slumped to the floor, her arms over her head, and sobbed helplessly.
Marcie knelt beside her, profoundly afraid and ashamed. “Laura,” she said, “Do whatever you want with me. I’ve hurt you so terribly. Hurt me back if it’ll help. Do something. Do anything. I can’t stand to see you like this. Oh, Laura, Laura. Please don’t cry like that. Please.”